MOVING

The NHL club, which has called Long Island home since the early 1970s, is moving to the new Barclays arena in downtown Brooklyn, according to a report Wednesday in the New York Post.

Islanders owner Charles Wang, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman and New York developer Bruce Ratner, who spearheaded the new arena and the move to relocate the team, made the official announcement at a news conference Wednesday afternoon.

Wang opened the session by exclaiming “Hello, Brooklyn!”

“Today we are announcing that the New York Islanders will remain in a local marketplace as we have entered into 25-year agreement beginning with the 2015-16 season to play in this state of the art building called Barclays Center,” Wang told reporters.

“I am excited about today’s announcement and look forward to a long successful future in Brooklyn,” said Wang. “It was our goal from day one to keep the Islanders in the local New York area.”

The Islanders will join the Brooklyn Nets as tenant at Barclays Center.

“Brooklyn is big time and now we have the big league sports to prove it,” Mayor Michael Bloomberg said.

The move has long been expected, and Ratner has said he has been “trying like hell” to bring the Islanders to Brooklyn. An exhibition game at Barclays was to feature the Islanders and New Jersey Devils, but was cancelled due to the NHL lockout.

The Islanders have called the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Uniondale their home and the arena, now the oldest in the NHL, has long been in need of renovations and upgrades. The Islanders ranked second in attendance last season, with 13,191 fans per home game — a figure which ranked ahead of only the Phoenix Coyotes, another NHL team mired in relocation rumours.

The Islanders lease at their current arena expires in 2015.

The Brooklyn Nets of the NBA play their first season in Barclays next week.

Officials in neighbouring Nassau County, N.Y., have struggled for years to come up with a plan to either renovate or build a new arena to replace the Memorial Coliseum, which opened in 1972. That same year, the Islanders joined the NHL.

Wang has threatened to move the team from the site when the team’s lease expires after the 2015 season. Wang, the founder of a computer software company, presented a plan in 2003 for a privately funded multibillion-dollar development of housing, retail and a new arena on the property, but the proposal foundered amid community opposition.

Wang has complained that the dilapidated building is unsuited for a professional sports franchise.

Earlier this month, the U.S. Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration cited the building for 16 violations of workplace health and safety standards. OSHA said workers had been exposed to asbestos. The areas were not accessible to the general public. It also found inadequately lighted exit routes and other violations.

A statement from SMG, the company that manages the Coliseum for Nassau County, said it would contest the citation. It said the asbestos issues had been remediated.

As recently as April, Bettman said Brooklyn might not be a viable destination for the Islanders because it’s hard to reach for the team’s fan base in Long Island and Queens. However, the team’s announcement of a news conference at the Barclays Center trumpeted the fact that it is located “atop one of the largest transportation hubs in New York City . . . accessible by 11 subway lines, the Long Island Rail Road, and 11 bus lines.”

Bettman said at the time that the league ideally wanted the club to remain in Nassau County.

Last year, county voters overwhelmingly rejected a referendum — backed by Wang — that would have allowed Nassau County to borrow $400 million to build a new hockey arena on the current site in Uniondale.

Earlier this year, county officials announced they were seeking proposals to open the 77-acre parcel to any developer interested in proposing new ideas for the site. An announcement on those proposals was expected to be released any day.

County Executive Edward Mangano, who backed the referendum as a way of keeping the hockey team from leaving along with spurring economic development and job growth, had no immediate comment on the reports about the team’s move.